Aram Lee’s
bespoke trolleys
take art on tour
You believe the museum as we
know it will cease to exist...
AL: I see the future museum not as one
massive solid building, but as something that
exists minimally and liminally. Imagine if
collections were showcased in fragments on
mobile trolleys. This decentralized approach
would allow the museum to disperse through-
out the city.
How would this work
in practice?
Objects and archives would walk around the
city. Well, actually they’d be pushed around
on bespoke trolleys by the public. The trolleys
and people would not only physically carry the
collection, but also the stories and knowledge
contained within the objects – and within the
museum itself.
This concept allows a collection to
exchange its static nature for something more
socially, politically and culturally engaged;
unpredictability makes it possible for this
reactivation to take place. In this sense, the
concept of the visitor is completely trans-
formed as they become learners, participants
and unintended (sometimes unwilling) actors
that co-interpret its historical reminiscences.
‘Bespoke trolleys’,
you say. What would
inform their design?
Each trolley will reference aspects of the
object it carries: its shape, material, colour,
stories. It’s an idea I’ve explored already with
Inside Out, a projected I initiated in 2017
together with Anaïs Borie and Ottonie von
Roeder. We designed a trolley for specific
objects from the Zuiderzeemuseum in the
Netherlands, customizing its structure so it
could travel around the country. One such
object was a pipe made of porcelain from the
Zuiderzee region, which we took on a journey
to places that related to it. This performative
act – a museum on wheels – meant the object
could permeate the city. It was about eman-
cipating the archive while developing a novel
and proto-architectural format that unpicks
the solidity of an institution. So the trolley
becomes an alternative to the usual museum
description; it represents the object’s story
without relying on a single narration.What sparked the idea?
When you dissect museums, you find a
similar pattern regardless of their location.
The museum collects objects, bringing them
together in a single spot to form a collection.
The collections of many design and applied
arts museums comprise thousands of things
amassed from a myriad of different timelines.
My analysis was that when something enters
the museum we can say that it’s ‘dead’ in
that its life as a functioning object is over.
Yet museums are immortal places – within
their depots are millions of items, hiddenAn idea she explored through Inside
Out (2017) together with Anaïs
Borie and Ottonie von Roeder, Lee
envisions emancipating a museum’s
collection from its architecture.and frozen in time. By bringing its objects
out from these dark depots, the museum will
exist transparently and encourage dialogue,
revealing new stories and – potentially – new
knowledge.Museums and archives also
help to protect precious
objects. How does your design
deal with safety and security?
The trolleys are of course designed to protect
whatever is placed inside of them. But the idea
is to break the architecture of the museum
and the timeline of the object. The institu-
tion’s rigid form should give way to a more
fluid treatment of the objects it contains.
This precariousness of an object’s handling
and movement are what allow for these new
layers of historical meaning to develop. These
destabilized conditions resituate the precious
object so its immediate environment is safe
but its meaning is not. The precarious state of
the thing is what challenges the act of archiv-
ing in the first place.•
leearam.comArtist Aram Lee focuses on reinterpreting
and repurposing matter found within insti-
tutions. Through the likes of performative
events and film installations, she attempts
to reshape the complex trajectories of
objects and images by shifting the struc-
tures of power.The Challenge 153